This is a competitive renewal application of an R25 training grant supporting a unique, five year Research Track Program. The Research Track is embedded in an existing, highly successful residency program at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine. The goals of the program are to recruit talented medical graduates into the Residency Research Track Program, and provide extensive research training, opportunities to conduct hands on research with long-term mentorship during the course of their expanded residency training. This will provide tools to talented medical graduates early in their training to become independent and productive investigators in mental illness. The training has three components: (i) formal courses in biostatistics, research design, and neuroscience; (ii) participation in the conduct of experiments in the mentor's laboratory; and (iii) initiation of an independent project with the mentor's guidance, and support from competitive Pilot Projects Funds. The setting for this proposed training is a mature, academic Psychiatric Department which has an active federally funded research portfolio, hosts two NIMH supported centers, the Advanced Centers for Interventions and Services Research (ACISR) and the Center for Mental Health Services Research (CMHSR), a VA Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), and has a vibrant basic neuroscience presence. The Department has an excellent track record of training productive investigators in schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Based on the previous funding, the Research Track Program has now established an outstanding track record with most graduates continuing with academic careers, 30 publications most first authored by the trainees, and success with early extramural funding by the trainees or graduates. [unreadable] [unreadable]